Category: Wolf Notes #1

Larry Polansky, David Dunn, Warren Burt, Chris Mann.
Chair: Nate Wolley

The following discussion took place at Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room on June 22nd, 2010.  The occasion was the first “critical theory” presentation of the “Darmstadt” series which takes place throughout the year and is curated by Nick Hallett and Zach Layton.  The event itself, and the subsequent recording and transcription are brought to you by Compost and Height and Nate Wooley with tremendous help from Issue Project Room, New World Records, Pogus Recordings, and the four participants. Continue reading “Critical Theory: A Symposium on Kenneth Gaburo”

1. When attending a funeral, one must always wear black.

2. A black suit hangs in my closet.

3. Therefore, naturally, I should simply have worn this solemn black suit, which was after all an excellent suit—expertly tailored by English tailors, who are the world’s supreme tailors—and made of the finest worsted wool.

Continue reading “Joseph Clayton Mills ‘Eighty-eight Keys’”

Whether the mark of a drawn line, the chemical imprint of light on paper, or the gathering of sound through a microphone, the mimetic act of recording – of entering traces of the world into the index of cultural and personal memory – is not itself memory, but a catalyst for imagination. Like a procession of raindrops carving away at the roof or a stream impressing itself on a stone, the persistence of recorded objects seems to strive towards permanence, both claiming and eroding space and etching a form of script on the mind.  Continue reading “Seth Cluett ‘Tracing Moving Circles’”

I have spent much of the fourth decade of my life wondering about how I listen, both to music and to life in general. I have, over the years, taught myself to listen with an increased degree of attention, focus and clarity, and have taken great joy from the results this process has brought me. I make no claims to being able to listen any better than anyone else, only to fulfill my own need to experience music as closely as I can. In recent years, listening to music has become an intense, thoroughly joyful experience, a subtle balance between the analytical and the emotional, but it takes effort. Just putting on a piece of music while doing the washing up, or the ironing, or while sat on a train isn’t going to be enough any longer. A certain state of mind now seems to be needed for me to listen in the manner I now prefer.  Continue reading “Richard Pinnell ‘A Place to Listen’”

The Eggdogfish

 A creature created by brain waves emitted by humans during moments of inattention, especially during a conversation. Consequently, it has never been seen or heard, leaving only perhaps a suggestion of its existence in the form of a vague sensation that something might have happened. Continue reading “Tim Parkinson ‘Fantastical Zoology’”